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Food plots outside your regular garden can keep deer away from the veggies you intend for your kitchen or attract the animals for purposes of photography or hunting. These food plots, best located near where deer bed down in the evening or near the edges of a wooded area, should be established in areas with soil that hasn't previously been cultivated. Plant grain, corn and brassicas, including radishes. Tasty red salad radishes aren't the best bet for attracting deer, though. Forage, or daikon, radishes produce lush tops for winter grazing and long, thick roots that break up and improve uncultivated soil for future planting.

1

Till or disk an appropriate site in full sun with good drainage. Forage radishes will not grow where the soil is consistently wet.

2

Plant radish seeds 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep. In the regular garden they are planted 6 to 8 inches apart in rows spaced 3 feet apart, but spacing is not critical when you plant them as forage. Seeds can even be mixed with other winter forage plants and planted all at once in September or October, at least six weeks before the first frost.

3

Water seeds in well, or plan to seed before or just after a rainfall in a large plot with limited access to water.

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4

Allow the roots to decompose in the soil after the tops die back. They create deep pockets of organic matter in poor or compacted soil.

5

Rotate forage radishes with a forage plant that is not in the brassica family every third year to avoid problems with fungal disease.

Things Needed

Tiller or disker

Warnings

Forage plots should be at least an acre to be effective.

Food plots planted specifically to support and attract deer are not considered illegal baiting under most state hunting regulations, as long as you don't also scatter seed, dried corn and other feed on the ground outside planting time just to draw deer to the area.

Tips

The leafy radish tops, which can be 2 feet tall, can grow back during the growing season after deer have grazed.

Resources

Photo Credits

Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Getty Images

About the Author

Patricia Hamilton Reed has written professionally since 1987. Reed was editor of the "Grand Ledge Independent" weekly newspaper and a Capitol Hill reporter for the national newsletter "Corporate & Foundation Grants Alert." She has a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Michigan State University, is an avid gardener and volunteers at her local botanical garden.